Problem Fans on Video Cards?

MobyDisk asks: "Both myself and my roommate have experienced problems with unreliable fans on video cards, leading to fried video chips. Most cards don't have full-size 12V fans, even though they put out a lot of heat. I've resorted to replacing the fans with cheap upgrades. A search for '"video card fan' on Google reveals lots examples of this problem as well as fan upgrade kits. I want to know how common this problem is. Have other readers experienced problems with video card fans? Should video card manufacturers start using better fans for reliability? Or do they just want us to upgrade next year when the fan dies?"

Comments

Hey!

[floydigus]

I'm a fan of video cards and I'm very reliable, thank you.

Considering how fast new chipsets come out

[questionlp]

Taking a look at the video chipset development cycle... new chips (be it a brand new architecture or an extension to an existing high-end chip) come out every 8-12 months (although nVidia used to be a lot more aggressive with a 6-8 month cycle). With such a fast dev cycle, they think that gamers that like to hot-rod their machines and have the latest and greatest will always upgrade soon after the temporary king of the hill is released. Now, it's the ATI 9700 Pro... in a couple of months, it will be the nVidia NV30, etc.

With that... they probably don't really care of the fans fail after a year since they probably want you to upgrade by then anyway.

But for those without a budget to upgrade every 8-12 months... we may be out of luck since new cards usually mean different cooling solutions (due to die size, heat production, the heatsink mount hole positions, etc.) and some of the aftermarket stuff don't quite cut it.

One solution might be to get one of those large coolers that attach to where the PCI/AGP cards screw holes are and blow right at the video card (and other cards). That way, even if the fan dies, there is still some airflow getting through the heatsink. It's not a pretty solution, but it's more like a cast than a band-aid :)

nVidia 4600

[Zelet]

My roomie had a fan's bearings get noisy after only a month of use. I am assuming that the fan will fail within the year.

Maybe a new cooling solution for computers needs to be implemented. Having a fan for the power supply, processor, GPU, hard drives, southbridge, and basic system fans can get very noisy. Especially if two (or more) of the fans resonate. I think it is time for a standard cooling system. Maybe each piece of hardware that needs cooling should come with a universal bracket that hooks to industry standard water cooling solutions or something.

Just random thoughts.

Re:nVidia 4600

[delus10n0]

If the wterpump dies in a water-cooled setup - Everything Dies.

That's only if you're a moron and don't have some sort of auto shutdown present on your system. Either through software, such as motherboard monitor, or through hardware.. though I haven't seen too many hardware devices for this task. I just rely on Motherboard Monitor. If my CPU or GPU gets too hot, it just shuts down immediately.

Also, if you're extremely paranoid, no one's stopping you from running two smaller watercooling pumps. I've seen a professional watercooling kit sold that had two pumps inside of a tank, and one would take over should the other fail. Pretty slick.

Re:nVidia 4600

[delus10n0]

That's why you use DISTILLED WATER, which is a poor conductor of electricity, especially compared to regular water.

And why would your tubing get a hole? Are you mixing acid in with your water? Sheesh.

If a watercooling system is built/designed well, it will last a long while without maintenance of any kind.

how about no fans?

[nocent]

For your next video card, how about considering getting one without fans that is built to function with the heatsink only. Unless you plan to overclock it, you won't need a fan which reduces the overall noise level of your box and eliminates a potential point of failure. There are definitely some Geforce 2 MXs and Geforce 4s(not sure if they are MX) out there that come fanless.

quietpc

[God_Retired]

I've had pretty good luck with this place. Quiet and effective. I'm not affiliated with them.

Re:"Unless you're a moron"

[delus10n0]

However I highly doubt that Mom and Pop are able to configure MoboMon, or even leave it alone if it came preconfigured.

This would be where a hardware solution would work perfectly. Someone just needs to come up with one (if there isn't one already; I just don't know of any off-hand.)

Also, the things you point out about water cooling could just as easily apply to air cooling. Does mom and pop know that they should be cleaning out their PC's case after xxx hours of usage? Or how to replace a defective fan?

If someone put together a well-built, well-designed watercooling system (perhaps already pre-installed in a case?) along with proper maintenance instructions, it would be ready for OEM use.

The only setup I've seen so far like this would be the Koolance cases. They come with all the equipment/tubing/etc. run for you. Just has a waterblock taped to the side of the case. You fill the system, install your hardware, attach the waterblock (same as a regular heatsink), and off you go. I believe the Koolance even has overheat protection built in (which will kill power to the system if it reaches a certain temp.)

Big fan, low speed...

[Gordonjcp]

I've taken out all the pishy wee 1.5" and 2" fans in my machine (removable drive bays, chipset, CPU and graphics card heatsink), and replaced them *all* with a couple of 4" or 5" fans. They're designed for 12v but I run them off the 5v rail. They're almost silent in operation, and blast a lot of air around the inside of the case. Everything runs nice and cool, and it's blissfully quiet...